Purple Rain
by kitty1
Summary: The effects of Rampage on Carter and Abby's relationship (yup, the finale two seasons ago, work with me here people! ;)) Second chapter.
1. Default Chapter

Purple Rain Part I  
  
Rating: PG-13, possible NC-17 in future parts  
Archive: All and sundry. Just keep my ego happy by keeping my name and addy attached. :)  
Spoilers: Through Season 8 and "Rampage"  
Disclaimer: All characters herein are the respectful property of Warner and his Brother's. :) Title borrowed from Prince's song of the same name - no I'm not Prince, so it isn't mine either.  
Author's Notes: I feel as though I should really explain this one, even though it's entirely self-explanatory. It's a Carter/Abby romance fic, and yet it really isn't. It's an angst-fest. Should be the first part of a series.   
  
Summary: The effects of "Rampage" on Carter and Abby's relationship.  
  
------------  
  
He feels as though he's been on-call for the best part of his life.  
  
His pager's ringing again. He was asleep and he could hear it ringing out in his dreams. As he pulls himself up from the exam bed, he wonders if they're designed to do that. Reach into your sleep and shake you by the collar until you're awake enough to slam it against a nearby cabinet. His pager has been reduced to one big bruise.  
  
---------------  
  
Eleven and a half hours to go, only eleven and a half hours left to go, he repeats to himself as he peels off the latex and moves to stand outside an exam room.  
  
Abby's inside and he's going to talk to her. At gunpoint if he has to.   
  
He's impatient as he stands outside and watches the other nurses leaving, Luka leaving, Mark leaving, and no Abby. He turns to see her standing alone in a sea of disposable gloves and bandages. She doesn't notice when he shuts the door behind himself and moves to stand behind her.   
  
She jumps, almost dropping a chart when he clears his throat.   
  
"I'm busy, Carter," she says too quickly.  
  
He shakes his head. "It'll only take a minute."  
  
She sighs. "Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight..."  
  
His heavy gaze forces her to look up at him, and when he has her attention he speaks, his voice low and husk. He's as close to her as she allows. Which is closer than enough for him.   
  
"Are we not talking about it?"  
  
"About what?"  
  
Her stubbornness amuses him. He shrugs, wanting her to say something about if first. Maybe he imagined it?   
  
Their gaze holds, neither moving to break the silence or the distance. They're both as stubborn as the other. She finally gives him a quirk of an eyebrow and a small polite smile, sidestepping away from him and moving towards the door. His minute is up.   
  
He moves quickly, a hand spinning her around to face him. He kisses her hard on the lips, and this time the chart does fall. She takes a step back and he takes one towards her. He finally pulls away, until her lips are back in focus, slightly swollen from his impulsiveness.   
  
She kissed him the first time, and now he's kissed her. "We're even," he says as she finally turns to look up at him.  
  
She doesn't say anything, her mind stumbling across the right things she should be saying. She almost resents the fact that she can still taste him; a heady mixture of caffeine and something wholly him. She resents the fact that she's left wanting more.  
  
She looks away, eyeing the chart on the floor next to her feet. "Carter..."  
  
A page of the chart is torn and when she looks back up he is gone.  
  
-------------------  
  
Ever since the day of the shooting their conversation has been limited to medicine - small talk about patients and coffee. Pretending that things don't happen is something she's good at. It's something that he has to accept. Her life is stuck in either fight or flight.  
  
It had been early morning, late night, and in a blur of bad coffee and little sleep he had been shifting through the supply cabinet for a folder with nursing home numbers. The last thing he had been expecting was to be kissing Nurse Abby Lockhart, the almost-doctor, dead flower lover and his best friend.   
  
She needed some spare scrubs. Two drawers below the drawer he was using. She had dropped to her knees, attempting to find the sizes she needed.   
  
"I got - I got a letter from the medical board this morning. About my application."  
  
"You still thinking about becoming a doctor?" he asks turning to look at her.  
  
She smiles and shrugs lightly. "Maybe. I don't know. It's a lot of pressure to go through just for the hell of it, you know?"  
  
He nods, finding the file and turning to look at her. "You're a great nurse... but you're always going to wonder if you'd make a better doctor."   
  
She watches him for a second and then nods. "Interview's next Monday. I'll go. See if there's a brain surgeon in me just waiting to break out."  
  
They're talking and smiling and he thinks that it's so easy to fall back into routine. He's a drug addict, and knows this well.   
  
He watched her hesitate on her way out. Quickly, she spoke. "It's strange not being able to talk to you."  
  
And surprised, he nodded. He played along with her self-devised-game, immediately breaking the rules. "This isn't talking to me?"  
  
He can see her wanting to escape. His words trapping her into a confrontation. Animal instinct beckoning her survival: fight or flight?   
  
She's not looking at him. "It's complicated, Carter."  
  
And still, she manages to say it without saying it. Most people wouldn't stand for this. Taking second place to denial. But he knows she needs it, and a small selfish voice inside his head insists he can change that, that he'll be the one to change it. Maybe they're both as deeply in denial as the other.  
  
"I'm into you. You're into Luka. Not so complicated. I could draw you a picture if you wanted?"  
  
She's not saying anything, but isn't going into flight mode either. Progress? Evolution? Her eyes are dark and he can't read them.   
  
He decides to be the bigger man and moves to the door, waiting for her to step away and let him out. She doesn't. He's standing with one hand just above her head on the door behind her, and she's not moving. He looks down at her, and he forgets how they get from that point to her kissing him and him not pushing her away. She pulled back first, her hand turning the door handle and then she was gone.  
  
He had spent the rest of his shift wondering why he hadn't kissed her back.  
  
-----------------  
  
He didn't know how difficult this would be. They're not even now - they're at odds and neither knows the stakes.   
  
It's her game and he doesn't know the rules, and he almost asks her twice during traumas. Are we allowed to talk like normal people? Are we normal people? Who's leading? Is it my turn now or yours? What's the forfeit?  
  
She doesn't cheat, she explains to a space behind his head after he's kissed her, and this time she's kissed him back. This time it wasn't a fumble and they were both left sighing.   
  
She looks hurt. Ashamed. Sorry.   
  
They're in an exam room, and it's dark outside. She'd asked to meet him in there. They now limit their conversation to preschool notes passed through lockers and quick thrills garnered in supply cabinets.   
  
He doesn't want to be the other guy, he whispers, and she doesn't look up.  
  
Too late, too late, she almost tells him, it's too late to say that. You've always been the other guy.   
  
The air between them thickens and neither moves.   
  
She wonders what the clinical definition of cheating is. That maybe she had long ago broken the fine print. Took advantage of the loophole. She wants to run, run not just out of the exam room, or out of County. Away - away from everything, away from Carter, away from Luka, away from her failed marriage and failed medical career, start all over again. As if it were ever that easy.   
  
She's trapped in another dance and she doesn't know the moves.  
  
She's never looked so vulnerable and he steps back, ashamed and almost angry. Why does it have to be like this? It wasn't supposed to be like this.  
  
She's standing right in front of him and he can't touch her. He wants to touch her, wants to be so many things for her, and he can't. He hates Luka for this. He hates himself. He hates her.  
  
There's a silence as they appraise their next move. It's a study in the art of improvisation.  
  
She takes lead, once again, lowering her gaze, and sighing. She kisses him too quickly, and he doesn't have time to respond as she leaves him, in the dark of the exam room, wondering if this isn't in fact the forfeit.   
  
---------------  
  



	2. Chapter Two

Chapter 2

Rating: R, for this chapter. 

Spoilers: Through Season 7 and "Rampage." 

Disclaimer: All characters herein are the respectful property of Warner and his Brother's. 

Author's Notes: My English teacher believed in always finishing what you started... so, I've finally written a second chapter. Two season finales later. I like to build up the, uh, anticipation and suspense. Not that would I recommend her reading this, because her dear old heart would probably give in – mostly for all the grammatical errors I'm sure exist, not the R rating. 

Thanks to Charli for tolerating me (barely) and also for Annie, who issued forth the challenge for C/A "smut," and who's wonderful story inspired me to write this. She also read through this, helped every time I begged her to and issued me a thousand Hail Mary's for using the f-word. I'm up to ninety-nine.

***

*

Then suddenly, he's against her and they're kissing. His hands frame her face, holding her there, inhaling her, inhaling him. She kisses like someone who's learned not to waste time, pressing against him and pulling him closer. They move and spin, winding through the tight area, slamming into cabinets, IV stands and other exam room paraphernalia.

He kisses like someone who's forgotten the rest of the world exists beyond this. He kisses her like a man in love.

And for moments it's only them. His hand on the slope of her neck, the other cradling the small of her back, her hands around his shoulders, underneath his scrub shirt, cold and fast, reminding him that time isn't something that he can waste either, that time has been something they've wasted.

Right now, she's almost his and only his and it's all he needs.

*

Stolen moments in the dark, stolen moments in the cold light of day. At best it's the petty theft of a lingering touch that stays almost too long, at worst it's hundred dollar kisses that last for days.

*

She pours herself the fourth coffee of the morning. Black. She's punishing herself today.

She hasn't spoken to him in days. And pretends she hasn't been tallying them up in her head. Whenever their eyes catch in trauma rooms or in hallways she has to look away, because her guilt is written in the darkness in his eyes. She's always surprised that nobody else sees it there too, that no one catches her looking away, or sometimes how they don't, how they forget these are things they're not supposed to be doing, how dangerous these things are.

She's overly sensitised to his presence, her Spydie senses will flair up and she'll know he's entered a room. 

It's arguments about nothing and everything now with Luka. Everything she hates about herself is amplified around him. He hasn't done anything wrong, but she keeps hurting him anyway.

What kind of a person is she? A cheater, a liar, a slut. She isn't used to all this soap opera infidelity.

But – she's not cheating on him, not if cheating is defined as sharing what you have with someone with someone else, because what she has with Carter she's never had with anyone else. This can't be cheating when they're barely on speaking terms at the moment, let alone managing to enjoy this. This can't be cheating when she's not gaining anything from this. It can't be cheating when all she's doing is losing.

*

"Wait," she calls out to Carter's back, following behind him into an empty exam room.

He does, taking a breath, standing with his back towards her.

Another trauma had just ended, another life wasted away. It's almost the end of another shift, another eight hours with him barely being able to look at her, barely managing to say anything to her other than a string of medication orders and surgery appointments.

They used to be able to talk, really talk. It was one of the things she would look forward to most during her days, knowing that they could talk. Now when she's near him she doesn't know what to say, if there's anything she can say.__

Do you know lately, we've been kissing? 

This thing between them hangs loosely, barely holding them up at all, and any sudden movement could break it.

She's waiting for him to turn to her and when he doesn't she tries smiling, "You're not talking to me?"

His fingers are busy peeling at a box of gauze, fixated on it. "I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you right now, aren't I?"

"You're just not looking at me."

Unwillingly, he brings his eyes up to hers. Her expression is earnest, almost sad.

*

Suddenly, she's pinned to the counter, his body hard against hers. He moves down to her neck as his groin grinds against her, his hips meeting hers with unleashed passion. It feels so good to have him touch her, she doesn't mind the smell of antiseptic, the cold sharp surfaces. She doesn't care that anyone could walk in right now, that anyone could find them like this. Nothing in her life feels right, nothing in her life has ever been right, she doesn't know why this is supposed to be any different; she doesn't know why this is different.

She doesn't know why the warmth of his mouth on hers is different; why there's a difference in the way her arms tremble when his hands are on them, why the feeling in her stomach is different, the burning in her lungs. 

But then he's murmuring her name on her skin; her hands tracing his on his back, and the feel of him against her, the way his mouth fits against hers is something that's, almost, almost right.

*

"This isn't fair," he's saying, "For him, for me. It's not what I want and it shouldn't be what you want either."

She's shaking her head at what he says, at him, at this mess. "None of this is what I want."

*

A sigh, a sip of bitter coffee and she continues trying to pick at this lady's chart, going over her ailment at least five times before it sinks in.

There's a small tap on the locker room door. It's already open and Luka's leaning against it, watching her.

"Hmmm?"

He smiles, "There's a GSW coming in. ETA's six minutes."

She sighs; looking back down at the chart she's already read through six times, as though expecting something new to have happened to it.  "I'll be right there."

He's still standing there when she looks up; his fingers peeling at a poorly painted corner, his eyes down.

"Talk to me, Abby."

She crosses her arms over her chest defensively and shrugs. "This isn't talking to you?"

He wonders if it's overreacting to think that this statement sums up their entire relationship.

"I'm sorry," she says after a pause.

He waits, expecting something else, something more, and then gives in to being the one to speak, trying to smile. "We could get something to eat, after work?"

She can count the number of times she's kissed him on one hand, but knows the way he touches her, the way he tastes. The way his eyes take her in just before he leans down and she doesn't know why she keeps finding herself like that, when she doesn't mean to, doesn't want to hurt Luka, hurt anyone.

So she smiles at him, "Thai?"

There's a pause before he grins slowly, nods, and then she watches as he leaves.

*

He chews at his bottom lip, "I don't want to be... some guy you come running to whenever you have a problem."

She can't meet his gaze, "You're not some guy."

"Sometimes it feels like I am."

*

It's the first time it's happened like this. The first time she's pulled him against her and pressed her hand between them, between him, until the zipper of his pants surrendered, and he's sighing against her, his breath hot and thick. She's almost shaking as her own underwear scrunches at her feet, almost shaking as he kisses her roughly, desperately, like this is the last time he's ever going to kiss her, the last day he has to live, everything between them urgent, fatal, finite.

His breath on her neck, her legs around his waist. "I hate this," he tells her hair, and she doesn't say anything but arches her back against him, pulls his head towards her and kisses him hard before he's inside her. There's the tiny violence in the way he pins her to the wall with his hands, presses against her, moving roughly, urgently, it's fucking and her legs are tight around his waist and this feels so good, and his mouth is on her neck, and her eyes are closed and she's facing the ceiling almost in prayer, almost praying, their breaths short and fast.

She kisses him like this, like it's all going to end, which it is, it is, her lips are bruised bruising his, and she tightens her legs around him, until he finally collapses against her and there's nothing, nothing other than the sound of their breathing.

*

His voice is low, gentle, "It doesn't have to be like this."

They seemed to be leaning in closer together, as though the world was bending between them, pulling them together – because she knows that it's not them moving, that they don't want this, wouldn't do this again. 

But he's standing so close to her that she can smell his fading aftershave, mixed in with the sweat garnered from another shift, can feel the warmth of his breath, can't seem to shift her gaze from his, everything turning into a jumble in her head as their lips meet.

*

He moves away from her, breathing hard, his sad black eyes as sharp as the edges of broken glass in the dim light.

This – this isn't how it was supposed to be. He's never meant for them to be like this.

He keeps backing away, shaking his head in denial, in refusal. He can't look back at her, his guilt written in her eyes; in how vulnerable she looks, letting the door fall shut behind him.

The silence he leaves echoes, leaving her abruptly aware of how cold the room is, how cool the counter is beneath her.

She wonders if she should feel shame, dirty, cheap, as she replaces her clothing.

Wonders how this can be cheating when everything they have together is stolen, when everything they have together is a forfeit and a cheat, and almost doesn't count, almost never counts.


End file.
